


Old Habits

by mrkinch



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Erik you are not alone, M/M, Protective Erik, early iteration Cerebro is a torture device, joy in ability, mention of Holocaust violence, oblique reference to child mistreatment, remixing myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 21:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrkinch/pseuds/mrkinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik does not regret what he has given up to survive. One thing is offered back to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Habits

**Author's Note:**

> An extended fork of my drabble [Turn About](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1114670). Endless thanks, as always, to [Stewardess](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stewardess/pseuds/stewardess), for her organizational skills, copy editing, cheerleading, and generally comprehensive beta work. So many ♥s!

Meeting Charles, working with him, watching him interact with his own powers, bemuses Erik. Charles exercises a species of caution, yes, but he proceeds from concerns entirely unfamiliar to Erik. Charles, with his self-imposed rules to avoid endangering others, appears to set no limits on the dangers to himself, spending long hours in Cerebro that leave him wrung out yet in too much pain to sleep. That at the end of a session Charles is likely also to be drunk on the wonder of what he's sensed seems to Erik woefully insufficient compensation.

{{It's so beautiful, Erik! All those amazing minds. Well worth a little discomfort.}}

Erik snorts. "You can explain to me just how little when you're able to speak aloud." Charles is so physically incapacitated after these marathon sessions, simple torture as far as Erik is concerned, that Erik simply slings the man over his shoulder. It's a schlep from the converted folly to the second floor bedroom Charles prefers but carrying him bodily is faster than shepherding a stumbling, raving loony.

{{Surely your ability gives you a similar pleasure. Your mind outshines them all when you're using your power.}}

Erik feels his face stiffen, but Charles, head dangling behind Erik's back, can't see and is perhaps not listening closely, given his state. "I pay it no attention," Erik says, with as much finality as he can manage.

{{Why not? Surely it's glorious!}} Charles waves his arms and attempts to raise his head, which in his present position only results in a knee to Erik's chest. Erik grunts and shifts his arm to secure Charles more closely. Charles subsides, and soon a stifled groan alerts Erik to the migraine Charles will not mention. Erik's face is grim as he strides for the house, anxious to get Charles to bed in a darkened room. It will be hours until Charles is rational, even longer until he can speak aloud.

There's no more discussion that day but Erik has little hope Charles will let it go, forget, or be distracted, even less take Erik at his word.

. . .

Charles cleans them both up, bins the damp cloth, and comes back with a tumbler of water. He helps Erik drink then finishes the rest himself, but instead of abandoning the glass and crawling under the covers, he stands staring thoughtfully at the tendrils of decorative iron still restraining Erik's wrists and ankles. Charles has an excellent poker face. He mentioned once, off-handedly, that impassivity was a good thing for a child telepath to cultivate, and Erik spends more time than he ought speculating darkly on the implications. Yet here is Charles, showing Erik very clearly that something is weighing on his mind. Erik shivers. 

Erik's awareness of the room shifts as Charles releases his hold on Erik's abilities. The iron begins to respond to him again. Slowly he uncurls the loops and carefully reforms the original headboard design, reveling as he reaches out to sense each molecule of the bedstead, of the fire dogs across the room, the grandfather clock at the turn of the stair, the old silver set row on row above the sideboard two floors below, his favorite knives in the kitchen in the far wing of the mansion...

"It takes a great deal of trust to give up control as you do to me. That you do makes me happier than I can say." Charles fiddles with the glass, then startles, apparently surprised to have it still in his hand. He puts it carefully aside and sits, facing Erik from the edge of the bed. Charles's serious blue gaze cuts through Erik's haze of fading orgasm and returning ability. "I wonder if you'd trust me with something else."

Erik feels an abrupt sense of phantom movement, his mind casting about wildly, flailing for a clue to this turn. When Charles puts out a hand, one finger tracing the faint indentation around Erik's wrist, the act calms him as much with the memory of the last hour's stillness as with touch.

"We're all vulnerable in ecstasy, Erik, whether from a bloody good shag or letting our ability completely off the leash. Using Cerebro, I lose myself in the world's minds, trusting Hank, and you, to protect me while I'm gone, trusting you to bring me back to myself when I may not want to come." Charles withdraws his hand, as though releasing Erik from all compulsion. "I should like to do the same for you."

Ecstasy, submersion, return. Erik can't pretend not to know what Charles means, and the possibilities are at once rising in his mind, welling up from the depths of his being, overwhelming him and making him shake with a longing suppressed for decades. 

Erik learned long ago not to listen more closely to the metal around him than he needs to achieve his specific goal. It's not been safe for him to lose himself as he did before the world changed. Daydreaming his mother called it, following metal objects, tracing veins of ore in the ground, or abandoning himself to the intricacies of his father's pocket watch to the exclusion of all else. The railway yard dealt him the brutal lesson. 

When his father was torn from them, the separation and his mother's sobbing terrified him while the high emotion seemed to amplify the shout of iron tracks radiating out into the distance, the sweet song of silver on the fingers of the pig-faced officer whose baton came down over and over on their heads and backs and arms. Erik had struggled to pull in his awareness, and he had succeeded, shielding his mother, wild-eyed with grief and fear, and grappling her into the illusory safety of the boxcar. Much later, bent only on vengeance, when any moment's inattention might cost him a lead or his life, there were no more such moments. Discipline in all things kept him alive, and does so still. The music becomes more glorious, more urgent as his powers increase, but he shackles it ruthlessly. It swells and diminishes at his command. 

Erik takes a breath, holds it, tensing his entire body. He needs to think, damn it, to consider the consequences. It will take more than Charles's artless offer for him to abandon the vigilance that keeps him alive. That keeps Charles safe. 

Charles. Charles, who is never artless, who is himself strong, bold in his own way but careful of others, whom Erik trusts with control not only of his body but of his mind and his ability. Now Charles is offering Erik something he cannot have alone, if Erik dares take it. 

Erik reaches up to grasp the hard, graceful whorls so recently put to other use, exhaling as he savors the iron under his hands as well as in his mind. "It's been a long time, Charles. A very long time. As a child I'd lose an hour, sometimes more, simply feeling the metal around me, listening to its song, although I could do very little." _And during those lost hours I was utterly helpless, no good to anyone. I don't want to be that way again. I don't dare._

Charles shifts quickly and purposefully to bestride Erik, pale thighs bracketing Erik's narrow hips, reaching up with strong, square hands to reinforce Erik's grip on the headboard. "We dare many things with each other. And would I let either of us come to harm any more than you would?"

Erik knows the answer – that Charles is as powerful as Erik, and as protective – yet it feels like a betrayal, an abandonment of responsibilities at the core of his existence since the rail yard in Düsseldorf. He feels helpless indeed, watching Charles watch his struggle between honesty and the habit of fear. It's a habit that does not serve him now, in this place, and he has never kept what is not needed. 

Just then Erik's sated body reasserts itself and he yawns hugely. Charles looks affronted, then comical as he tries and fails to stifle an answering yawn. Erik manages a smirk and the tension is broken. He can breathe again, although he suspects the geography of his mind has changed forever. 

Charles releases Erik's hands and folds down beside him, poking at him to roll over until Charles can spoon up behind. Erik feels Charles's warm breath between his shoulder blades and Charles's mind in his as they slide into sleep. {{It will be glorious.}}


End file.
